


Something Rich and Strange

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: From Beyond (1986), Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Family, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22266886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Crawford Tillinghast is dead. Or at least, he thought he was. It comes as a surprise, therefore, to open his eyes and find himself in the living room of a small house, and to see his brother watching him from an armchair, taking notes.Or: Herbert West finds a solution that actually works.
Relationships: Crawford Tillinghast & Herbert West, Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65





	Something Rich and Strange

**Author's Note:**

> _Full fathom five thy father lies;  
>  Of his bones are coral made;  
> Those are pearls that were his eyes:  
> Nothing of him that doth fade  
> But doth suffer a sea-change  
> Into something rich and strange._ —The Tempest, Act I, Sc. II

It isn’t like falling asleep. 

One moment Crawford is there, fighting for control with Edward over the quivering blob of matter they now share. Katherine is screaming, there is a bomb ticking, and he doesn’t need to see it or hear it or touch it to feel it, the way it will soon rip through the space they’re in and leave nothing but particulate behind. He’s not glad of it, as shameful as it is. He flings himself down the stairs, hoping to fall into the landing in time to save his own life, whatever the repercussions might be for Edward. He cannot sacrifice himself to destroy someone else, not even someone who has caused as much grief as the man who brought him to this house.

By the next moment, the moment of the explosion, he’s somewhere else. Retreated back into the place between places, the beyond where his mentor had vanished. For a terrifying moment he thinks he can sense someone else there, and then it vanishes. Crawford is alone. Blessedly, silently alone. Edward is gone.

The house is burning, and Crawford, though he’s in no physical contact with it, can sense that his body is dead. Can sense when it is hauled into an ambulance, when other try fruitlessly to revive it. It is… disorienting. He wants to scream, to tell them that he’s here, he’s still here, but he simply _isn’t_ , not anymore. He’s somewhere else. He’s somewhere else for a long time. 

Crawford Tillinghast is dead. Or at least, he thought he was. It comes as a surprise, therefore, to open his eyes and find himself in the living room of a small house, and to see his brother watching him from an armchair, taking notes. 

Crawford blinks. He does it again, just to relish the sensation. Stimuli. He can feel. The couch he’s laying on is old and rather lumpy. The pillow under his cheek scratches. He’s warm but not unpleasantly so. The skin of his face feels tight and sensitive. 

His brother is still looking at him with narrowed eyes, scrutinizing him through his thick glasses in the same unnerving way he’d done when they were children, and Crawford wishes he wouldn’t. He opens his mouth to say something and his voice cracks coming out. 

“It’s alright.” Herbert says in clipped tones. “Don’t try to speak just yet.” 

‘I was-“ Crawford swallows and tries to sit up, but his head swims. He runs a hand over his forehead, feeling for the protrusion that had grown there out of his skull, and finds nothing. Only the bristling of new hair on his scalp, and it startles him so badly he almost yelps. 

Herbert is by his side in an instant, hands on his shoulders. “Don’t- I know this must be very strange but don’t panic-“ 

“Dead.” Crawford croaks at last. “I was _dead_ -“ 

“Daniel!” Herbert calls, looking away from Crawford down the hall of the house. “Daniel, I need your help!” 

A tall man in need of a haircut comes hurrying down the nearby stairs, and Crawford blinks at him for a moment before his eyes refocus on his brother again. Herbert looks immensely relieved when the stranger drops to his knees beside Crawford and takes his hand. 

“Hello, Crawford.” The man says in a soothing, warm tone. “I’m Dan, I’m a doctor, and you’re going to be fine, okay? Don’t worry.” He gives Crawford’s hand a little squeeze. “Everything’s just fine.” 

“I was _dead_.” Crawford repeats, his voice hoarse. 

“Yes,” Herbert agrees, crossing his arms, “you were.” 

“You’re obviously not dead now.” Dan says. Crawford does not miss the cautioning look Dan gives his brother, nor does he miss the way Herbert shakes it off with a look of his own. 

“You were dead.” Herbert repeats. “And now you’re not. And you seem to be perfectly fine, all your vitals were stable when we brought you up from the basement and your mental acuity doesn’t seem diminished, although I’d like to do some tests just to be sure, but,” he beams suddenly, all mania and teeth, and Crawford feels a flicker of worry for his brother peak through his own fear about himself and his circumstances, “you seem to be our first complete success.” 

Dan is still patting his hand in what is obviously supposed to be a reassuring way but Crawford has known his brother a lot longer than this man and he is not reassured. “What do you mean?” 

“Herbert-“ Dan says with a warning tone, and Crawford shushes him. “What’s going on?”

“How do you feel?” Herbert asks, scrabbling for his pen and notepad which he’d dropped by the side of the couch. “Do you feel irritable or angry at all? Irrational?” 

“I’m feeling pretty irritated right now, yes.” Crawford says sharply, and Herbert rolls his eyes. 

“Unusually so, I meant. Do you feel dangerous?” 

“Herbert, _what is going on_?”

“We did it.” Herbert’s face is furious delight as he turns. “We did it, Dan, we did it.” 

Dan puts a hand on Herbert’s shoulder and squeezes, and Crawford could scream. “ _What_ did you do?” 

“We brought you back.” Herbert says triumphantly. “We brought you back to life.”

Fifteen minutes later Crawford is sitting cross-legged on the couch, a mug of tea steaming in his hands and a blanket around his shoulders, staring at the floor in the middle of the room. 

“You’ve done this to how many people?” He says shakily.

“Four. Well, four if you’re counting Hill, but I don’t usually because that was... an extraordinary circumstance.”

“And you’re telling me I’m the first one who… what, didn’t come back wrong?” 

“Dan thinks it has something to do with your research into the pineal gland, whatever you were doing fundamentally altered your body chemistry but we’ll have to do some tests to determine exactly how-“

“Which we’ll only do if you’re comfortable with it.” Dan interjects, giving Herbert a look Crawford is coming to recognize as fairly standard between them.

Herbert waves his hand. “Yes, yes, but Crawford’s a scientist, I’m sure he understands how important it is to-“

Crawford lets out a shaky breath and pulls the blanket more firmly around himself. The mug of tea, undrunk, is hot against his palms, and the light from the lamp in the corner and the ceiling above is bright against his eyes. Everything _is_. The world _is_. He _is_. And it is suddenly too much. 

The tea isn’t hot enough to burn his legs when he drops it but it makes him flinch nonetheless, and then he is screaming. Dan’s hands are on his shoulders, and he tries to stop, tries to hear what the man is saying, but he can’t. It’s as if everything that has happened in the past months, every awful encounter with Edward, every thankless moment spent in front of the Resonator, every minute he spent in that goddamned institution and every _second_ in that _house_ , has suddenly burst out of him. Like water left to boil too long, all bubbled away to nothing, and Crawford is the pot burning itself on the stovetop. 

It is only when his brother grabs him and shakes that Crawford manages to stop. He watches as Herbert’s shoulders slump in relief, and Crawford is dimly aware that if their previous- a shudder goes through him at the phrase ‘test subjects’- had proven volatile then they will of course treat any outburst from him as cause to go on high alert. He slumps back against the couch and takes deep breaths, tries to calm himself, tries to hear what they’re saying to him now. 

“-don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you don’t even have to stay here although it would make me feel a good deal better if you were around so I could... look after you.” Herbert picks up the mug from the floor and dabs at the spill with the edge of the discarded blanket. “There’s a spare room now, and this certainly isn’t anything like as luxurious as the Pretorius Foundation, but-“

“Is it still there?” Crawford cuts in.

“What do you mean?”

“The house. Did it burn down in the explosion?”

Herbert looks unnerved. “It did, yes. The ambulance crew said they were lucky to pull your body out before the second story collapsed.” 

_Good_. Crawford thinks. He never wants to see the place again as long as he lives, and he doesn’t like the idea of somebody else sleeping in the same room he once slept in, waiting, afraid, for what might appear out of the darkness before him. “Thank you. I’ll stay, then.” 

“I’m… glad.” Herbert says rather stiffly, and Crawford smiles in spite of himself. He hasn’t seen his brother in years and it’s good to know time hasn't changed some things, like Herbert's halting awkwardness at expressing affection. “I have… clothes you can borrow, until you can find something more suited to your tastes. I’m afraid I never did grow out of the, ah, ‘funeral director look', as you used to call it.” 

Crawford looks up at his brother, fidgeting awkwardly with the mug he’s still holding, and wonders if it’s possible that this man has discovered a way to bring the dead back to life. It seems unlikely but then, Herbert has always been unlikely. Standing with some discomfort, due both to his wet clothes and physical pains he doesn't even want to think about, Crawford pulls him into a hug. 

Dan comes back into the room just in time for Herbert to pat him on the back and shuffle away, and he gives Crawford a warm look as he holds out a towel to him. “The spare room is the second on the left up on the landing, bathroom’s the third.” 

Crawford nods. 

“Let me go get clothes for you.” Herbert says and strides away, and Dan smiles more openly at Crawford.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Dan says. “I know he’s not very good with people but I think it really shock Herbert to hear you’d died.”

“It would have been worse on him if I’d come back like the others, though, wouldn’t it.” Crawford says, watching Dan’s wince in reaction. “Did you try to talk him out of it?” 

“Yes.” Dan says plainly, and the admission slots another piece of a puzzle into place for Crawford. He wonders how long ago Herbert’s old room became the spare. 

“I hope, for your sake, that you know what you’re doing.” Crawford says as Herbert returns with a pair of pressed black pants and a crisp white shirt. Dan nods again as Crawford takes them and retreats to the bathroom. 

* * *

Crawford doesn’t sleep that night. He stays awake staring at the light in the ceiling filtered through the curtains of the window, listening without really paying attention to the low murmur of voices from the next room. It is… comforting. Herbert’s voice, long-familiar and a reminder of another time, Dan’s voice, warm and pleasant. He seems the part of a doctor, Crawford thinks. Calm. Collected. The sort of man able to be dispassionate when necessary, or at least he must be, surely, to have maintained a relationship with Herbert. 

It makes something ache in Crawford, the idea that Herbert’s found someone. That Herbert has managed to grow past their childhood enough to attach himself to Dan, who seems to be a good man. That Herbert isn’t making Crawford’s mistakes. 

Although, he thinks, as he rolls over and winces at the pain that still radiates from almost every part of his body, if Crawford’s being here at all is any indication, both of them seem to have suffered from an obsessive devotion to their research. At least one of them hasn’t died for it. 

Crawford stays awake until the sun comes up, long after the soothing sounds of other people in the house have given way to silence.   
  


* * *

  
“What are we going to do with him?” Herbert says, halfway through the process of changing from his bathrobe into a pair of clean pajamas.

Dan pauses in the process of toweling his hair dry. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, he’s legally dead. He can’t stay here, the university knows he’s gone missing. And the morgue.” He adds as an afterthought.

“Well,” Dan says, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching Herbert finish dressing, “he doesn’t seem to be in a good state to be making decisions right now, but in a few days when he’s had time to get his bearings I’m sure he’ll have a plan. Gives you time to run your tests, if he’s agreeable.”

Herbert makes an impatient ‘tch’ sound as he hangs his robe on the hook behind the door.

“I don’t know, Herbert, what do you want me to say? You know him better than I do.” Dan snaps, then sighs. 

“I don’t, actually.” Herbert snaps right back as he sits down on the bed and removes his glasses. He’s facing away from Dan when he says, “we haven’t seen each other since we were eighteen. He’s been at Miskatonic all this time. I considered writing to him when I left Switzerland, but,” Herbert’s shoulders are hunched, and Dan resists the urge to move across the bed and comfort him, “I thought it best not to get him tangled up in anything.” He sighs, turns the lamp on the bedside table off, and curls into bed, facing Dan. “So no, I don’t have any idea what to do about him.” His eyes, always so much larger without his glasses, seem oddly bright. Dan brushes still-damp hair off his forehead, and Herbert moves closer, leaning into the proffered comfort. 

“You have time to find out.” Dan murmurs. Herbert nods, his eyes drifting closed under Dan’s touch. 

“Tomorrow we need to do some blood tests. Do you think you could bring home a centrifuge?” 

Dan laughs softly. “I think it might be a bit easier to take some samples into the lab and bring home notes, don’t you?” 

Herbert grumbles but doesn’t argue. His hand has found its way to Dan’s hip and is tracing idly along the strip of skin between his pajamas and his t-shirt. Dan shifts slightly closer and presses a kiss to Herbert’s mouth, relishing the little sound of pleasure he makes at the contact. 

He feels so lucky, despite everything, to have met this man, but the events of the last several days have thrown it into sharper relief. Watching Herbert work frantically to try and save a brother that until they’d seen the report of the fire on the morning news Dan hadn’t even known existed had filled Dan’s life with terror. It was never personal with Herbert, the work, except in the way the work was always and forever deeply personal, but Crawford had been different and Dan had been sure by the end that whatever the outcome, Herbert was about to break underneath it. The fact that Crawford is, against all odds, alive and well, presents a new set of problems but they are nothing compared to the crash Dan had been guarding against. 

Herbert’s hand traces patterns up Dan’s side, settling on his chest, and Dan kisses down the side of Herbert’s jaw and neck. They move against each other slowly, and Dan delights at every quiet gasp and stifled moan he wrings from his partner. He needs this. Needs Herbert after so many days spent watching over a body that looks too much like him, and judging from the way Herbert clutches Dan he needs this, too. 

Dan drifts off to sleep some time later with Herbert’s head on his chest, tucked under his chin, breathing slowly and evenly against him.   
  


* * *

Crawford drifts off just after sunrise but is rudely awoken by hammering on his bedroom door shortly after. When he opens it and glares at his brother, Herbert frowns. 

“You look terrible.” 

For a moment he considers getting into his troubles sleeping and then thinks better of it. “I was dead, remember?” 

A brief smile flits across Herbert’s face. “Yes, I was there. Dan’s leaving for the hospital soon and we need to take some samples of your blood before he goes.” 

Crawford rubs his eyes. “What do you need with my blood?” 

“I want to take a look at your DNA.” 

“Can’t you get that from a cheek swab or something?” 

“Crawford,” Herbert’s tone is testy, “which of us is a medical doctor?” 

“Fine. Let me get something to eat first.” 

“Dan is leaving soon, I have the things to draw your blood in the living room. You can eat after.” 

“Herbert, don’t be a pain in the ass.” Dan’s voice calls from somewhere else in the house. “I’m going in for rounds, there’s no rush.” He sticks his head around the door of the bathroom. “Crawford, there’s eggs and toast in the kitchen. Help yourself, I’ll be out in a minute.” 

“You really did not need to make me breakfast.” Crawford objects, but Dan shakes his head. 

“If I don’t make breakfast and force Herbert to eat it he won’t, it’s no trouble to set an extra place for you, as well.” Crawford looks at Herbert who is determinedly avoiding his gaze, arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently. 

Sitting down to breakfast with his brother and his brother’s partner is not the most uncomfortable experience of Crawford’s life by a wide margin but it does feel horribly familiar in a way he can’t place. Herbert is fidgety, eager to get to work, and Dan is making a valiant attempt at normalcy that only serves to make Crawford feel more like he’s the only one without a script he’s supposed to be following. He chews his toast mechanically and tries to swallow. 

“I’ll bring you back the results from the tests this evening, Herbert.” Dan says after a mouthful of coffee, and Herbert nods. 

“I’d prefer if I could run them myself, but I suppose it can’t be helped. I’m not back on duty until the weekend.” Herbert responds. “Bring me the separated samples, as well, will you?” 

Dan nods. Crawford’s toast sticks in his throat and he takes a large gulp of water. “I don’t… do you really need these blood samples?” 

“Yes,” Herbert says at the same time Dan says, “no.” Crawford takes another drink of water. 

“Look, we’re not going to force you to do anything you don’t want,” Dan says, putting a hand on Crawford’s where his fist is clenched on the table. 

“But you need to understand that I have been working on my reagent for years and you are the first person to produce such satisfactory results.” Herbert says with a fierce expression. “I need to know why.” 

“A few days isn’t going to make any difference to his DNA, Herbert!” Dan says, glaring. 

“What do you expect me to do in the meantime, hm? Sit around knowing the answers to my questions are dependent on my brother bucking up and letting me draw blood, which will take thirty seconds, at most?” Herbert glares right back at Dan, and Crawford feels sick. He remembers standing in front of the Pretorius Foundation with Katherine telling him it’s either inside or back to the institution. 

“I need to leave.” Crawford says, cutting through the argument beginning to bubble between Herbert and his partner. They both stop and look at him. 

“No, you- please sit back down.” Dan says as Crawford rises from the chair and backs away, out of the kitchen. The sunlight streaming through the window paints everything golden, and for a moment Crawford thinks he can smell Bubba’s cooking. He runs. 

The morning air is cool and damp. Fog hangs heavy in the distance, rolling over the hills that separate this house and accompanying graveyard from the town of Arkham, and Crawford gasps out a breath as he looks around. He stumbles across the countryside, not knowing where he is going or even caring, just wanting to put some distance between himself and the awful feeling that had crept up on him in the kitchen, the feeling that he is completely at the mercy of an unfeeling universe and always has been.

There is a creek flowing through the hills, and Crawford collapses by it, panting. He is cold and shivering in Herbert’s white shirt, and he closes his eyes as he leans his back against a tree and breathes. Everything smells wet and earthy, and it is this, more than anything else, that finally calms him. Rotting leaves mingle with the scent of the stream, open and changing, travelling to the sea. Such a stark contrast to the closed off smells of dust and stale water from the radiators that had somehow followed him from the Pretorius House. He imagines it clings to him, although he knows the more likely explanation is that Herbert and Dan also live in a very old house. 

It is a long time before anybody comes after him, and when they do, he is surprised to see it is Herbert and not Dan. 

His brother sits down on the wet ground beside him, and it seems wrong, Herbert in his crisp pressed clothes, in the dirt. 

“I’m sorry.” Herbert says after a long moment. There is little feeling in his voice, but when Crawford looks over, he is shredding a rare bit of fresh spring fern between his fingers and his mouth is a tight line. 

“For what?” Crawford asks, because he wants to hear Herbert say it. Needs to know he will not be pressured, explicitly or implicitly, to return to the house and submit to Herbert’s prodding. 

When Herbert’s response comes it is completely unexpected. “For not getting you out of there.” 

Crawford blinks. “What?” 

“When I went to university in New York.” Herbert continues, still looking down at the bits of fern staining his fingertips. “And you came here.” 

“Oh.” Crawford says. He doesn’t know what else to say. 

“I’d always assumed— our parents—” Herbert starts, then huffs out a breath. “I wanted to put as much distance between me and our family as possible.” 

“I know.” Crawford says, thinking of Herbert cowering from their father and the sound of him screaming from a locked room. The sound of Edward’s partners screaming from another room, while Crawford lay in bed and did nothing. While Crawford felt relief it wasn’t him. 

“And then… after Dr. Gruber died…” Herbert’s voice wavers and Crawford turns to look at his face for the first time. His eyes are shining behind his glasses. “I didn’t want you getting into any trouble.” Herbert looks up at Crawford with a grim expression. “But you were already in trouble, weren’t you?” 

Crawford opens his mouth and closes it again. “I don’t think there’s anything you could have done.” 

“I could have killed the bastard myself.” Herbert’s face is rigid, his eyes hard, and Crawford thinks he probably could have. He wonders whether he would have even told him.

“How did you find out?” 

“It wasn’t a difficult leap.” Herbert spits out harshly, returning to shredding plants again. “When I learned you’d been killed I went to Miskatonic to go through your research, see if I could help. Almost everyone I talked to about Pretorius told me the same story about him.” 

Crawford tries to remember if anybody had ever told him a story about Edward before he’d gone to live with him. Whether he should have seen it all coming or whether he’d been too blinded by the prospect of somebody taking his research seriously. Of taking him seriously. He draws a blank. It seems so long ago and yet, it couldn’t have been more than four years. He feels very old and very young simultaneously, and when he leans his head on Herbert’s shoulder his brother pats his knee. 

* * *

Herbert stops pushing after that, and to his satisfaction it proves to be the most expeditious strategy in getting Crawford to cooperate, anyway. By the time Dan leaves the next morning he has his blood samples, and Crawford is a good deal calmer having taken a wander around their property. Herbert tries to keep him out of the lab but he insists on following him down there to observe whatever Herbert is doing with his blood. 

As it turns out, there isn’t much to see. 

By the time Herbert returns to work on Saturday he is no further along in knowing why Crawford took to the reagent so well. 

“I don’t understand it!” He hisses to Dan as they stand side by side that night in the kitchen, Herbert chopping vegetables, Dan stirring a pot on the stove. “The reagent has fundamentally changed the DNA of every previous test subject but Crawford’s doesn’t have any of the usual markings. His blood sample is as similar to mine as twins can ever be.” 

“You’re measuring the changes against yourself?” Dan asks, trying to keep incredulity out of his voice as he reaches around Herbert’s waist for the cutting board so he can slide the chopped mushrooms into the sauce on the stove. 

“Well I can hardly measure it against a sample taken before his death, Daniel.” Herbert says. He passes Dan a container from the spice rack unprompted and Dan kisses his cheek. 

“You’ve taken the reagent yourself, though.” Dan reminds him, and Herbert waves a hand dismissively. 

“My stimulant worked using the same underlying mechanics as the reagent but it isn’t the same solution, as I’ve told you a hundred times. Anyway I should have found something by now. I’m no closer to understanding this than when Crawford was lying dead in the basement.” 

“It’s been a week.” Dan chides him gently, and Herbert scoffs. “You’ll figure it out, cut yourself some slack.” He gives the pot a final stir and sets a lid on it. “In the meantime, I think it’s doing you both some good, being around each other.”

Herbert glances through the door of the kitchen and into the living room, where his brother is curled up on the couch, reading a book about computational linguistics that Herbert had stolen from a patient earlier in the day. “You think so?” 

“Of course.” Dan leans in to kiss his cheek again, and Herbert turns his head so he catches his mouth instead. 

* * *

Weeks pass and Herbert makes little progress. Dan takes Crawford clothes shopping, an endeavor which Herbert begs out of with the excuse that he’s been wearing the same outfit for his entire adult life. Despite Herbert’s fears, nobody seems to recognize Crawford on the instances he accompanies one of them into town. The short-cropped hair and slow-to-return eyebrows probably have something to do with it. 

Before long, the cold wet spring has given way to early summer, and Dan begins pestering, as he does every year, to take a weekend trip to the coast. Normally Herbert shouts him down with complaints about sunburn, sand, overcrowding, but this year it is two against one, and so it is that Herbert finds himself scheduling him and Dan off work at the hospital and disposing of everything in the lab that he has the slightest worry will not keep for three days. He is no further along in understanding why Crawford is alive, and he is furious that Dan would rather they spend their time frolicking on the shore when he could be getting work done. He says as much to Dan the morning they plan to leave as he helps Dan carry things to the car. 

“Herbert,” Dan begins, opening and closing his mouth in a way Herbert has always found an odd mix of endearing and annoying, and Herbert raises his eyebrows. 

“What?” He says as he leans against a ridiculous sun umbrella that Dan had picked up secondhand somewhere and insisted they tie to the roof rack of his beat up Geo Metro to bring along to the beach. Dan looks at him for a long moment, then says, with an air Herbert isn’t sure he understands, “have you ever considered that maybe it doesn’t matter why?” 

“Of course it matters why.” Herbert rolls his eyes. “This is the culmination of my life’s work, how could it not matter?” 

“No, of course the work matters, I just mean… just, your brother is alive thanks to you. And isn’t that the whole point? Saving people? Is the ‘why’ really as important as the fact that it is?” 

“You’ve always been a sentimentalist, Daniel, but surely even you must know that without replicable results it makes very little difference that the reagent worked in this one instance.” 

“It makes a big difference to Crawford.” Dan says, as if that settles the matter. Herbert chooses not to dignify this with a response, and hefts the umbrella atop the car where Dan can tie it down instead. Infuriatingly, Dan smiles for the next hour as though he’s won some kind of argument. 

* * *

Crawford has not been to the ocean in years. Edward had invited him along with a friend once, in the early years of their relationship, and Crawford had gone because he couldn’t think of any reason not to. Some months later when his lease had ended and he’d moved into the Pretorius Foundation, finally caving to repeated offers from his mentor, he’d looked back on the trip and thought how nice it had been to be included. 

The memory is sullied now by too many long nights, too many demands he hadn’t known how to acquiesce to, and it’s with some mixture of trepidation and the spiteful need to overwrite his old associations that he puts his meager possessions into a bag Dan had loaned him and climbs into the backseat of his little car. Any situation he does not have the ability to flee from tends to set Crawford on edge these days, and being stuck in a car for an afternoon and then in a strange place for the rest of the weekend sets some alarm off in him. 

But it’s… nice. The drive is nice. The weather is warm, and Crawford has exchanged his sweater for a light button-down. Herbert, absurdly, is dressed exactly as he always dresses with the addition of a pair of clip-on sunglasses. Dan is wearing an old band t-shirt and a wide-brimmed hat that Crawford can tell Herbert wants to tease him about but is refraining from doing so, presumably due to the fact it sort of suits him. They have been on the road for half an hour and Dan and Herbert have settled into what seems to be a well-worn argument about the speakers in Dan’s car. 

“-and the sound quality is horrible even before you take into account your music taste.” 

“I’ve heard you hum this song more than once, Herbert, don’t try that with me. And I don’t know what you want me to do about it, I can’t afford to replace them and also keep importing you chemicals from South America.” 

“I don’t see why you can’t replace the whole car. Do you know how difficult it is to fold a cadaver to fit into the back of this thing?” 

“Yes, actually, and if I can’t afford new speakers how do you think I would afford a whole new car?” 

“It doesn’t have to be a _new_ car, just a different one. With a hatchback. Preferably also with better speakers.” 

“You could always take out this bench seat if you need more room.” Crawford points out, patting the seat beside him, and Dan smiles at him in the rearview mirror. 

“You’d be sitting on the same floor as corpses, then, Crawford.” Herbert says cheerfully, and Dan clicks his tongue. Herbert turns the music up with a grin. Crawford laughs over the sound of loud rock music and rolls down the window. His hair has grown back just enough to be moved by the breeze.

It takes them an hour longer to reach their destination than Dan had hoped, due mostly, he claims, to Herbert being abysmal at giving directions. Eventually Herbert shoves the map of Massachusetts over his shoulder and demands Crawford take over. They get where they’re going in the early afternoon.

They’re staying in a shabby little one-bedroom cottage with a pull-out couch in the living room, a far cry from the expensive hotel suite Edward had booked the last time Crawford had come to the coast. There is sand in the shower and a mouse scurrying around the kitchen which Herbert keeps eyeing like he’s waiting to pounce. The whole place feels vaguely damp even before Dan opens the windows to let in the sound of the ocean. Crawford adores it. 

The water is too cold to swim and in truth, in late April, the air is as well, but they pass the day wandering along the beach anyway. Crawford and Dan leave their shoes and socks by the front door of the cottage and walk ankle-deep in the surf, and Herbert, after much complaining about the sand getting in his shoes, leans against Dan so he can take his off as well. They talk about nothing. Crawford regales Dan with the odd happy story about his and Herbert’s childhood. Herbert points out unusual shells and tide pools for Dan, who knows a rather surprising amount about the little ecosystems. They return to the cottage as the sun sets and eat sandwiches from the cooler Herbert brought for dinner, and afterwards as Dan and Herbert argue over whether to reanimate the mouse now Herbert’s caught it Crawford pulls on his sweater and steps out again into the darkening evening. 

The wind is cold off the ocean. Upshore some distance the lights of the city glow, but above the water all is dark. Stars glitter, far away and cold. Eternity stretches out before him. 

Crawford settles down in the sand and breathes. 

Just as night has fallen completely Herbert comes out to join him. Crawford turns to him as he sits down carefully. “Did you reanimate the mouse, then?” 

“Dan took my reagent.” Herbert says with a shake of his head, and Crawford smiles. “What?” 

“Are the two of you happy?” Crawford asks, and Herbert looks at him for a long moment. 

“Yes.” He responds after a bit, like he’s had to think about it. Crawford understands. “Were _you_ happy? Before?” 

Crawford thinks he can hear the undercurrent of _was it always bad or did it become so_ and he doesn’t know how to answer that. Things with Edward had started out pleasantly enough. In fact, until the sex he’d been downright thrilled at his own good fortune to have found somebody who believed in and supported his research enough to provide him with not only room and board, but advice and strategies on more personal matters.

But there had always been a layer to their interactions that had unnerved him, even back when he’d been a student telling a professor at the university about his prospective doctoral research. He’d always felt like he was scrambling to live up to something. Like Edward wanted him to prove he deserved it. In some ways the feeling of never being good enough and still, somehow, wanting Edward’s approval had been the worst of it. It had certainly driven him into the worst of it, at any rate. 

“No.” Crawford answers, and it’s only in saying it that he realizes it’s true. “No, I never really was. It was always conditional, you know? I never felt… ” _Safe,_ maybe, Crawford thinks. _Free._ Funny how the two things seem the same, but he thinks Herbert would understand if anyone would. 

Herbert looks like he wants to say something else, and Crawford waits. “What was it like to die?” 

Crawford sighs and looks back up at the sky. He’s known the question was coming since he opened his eyes on Herbert’s couch months ago. It hasn’t given him time to prepare what Herbert wants to hear.

He gives it a shot anyway. “Do you remember when we were kids and we went camping on that island?” 

“Yes, of course.” Herbert says, something dark in his voice. Crawford can’t blame him; he can’t say it’s one of his fonder memories, either. They’d woken up one morning and climbed out of their tent to find their parents’ tent and the supplies gone, and the boat that had been pulled up onto the rocks was nowhere to be found. They’d through their parents had left them behind and gone back to the mainland. Herbert had spent ten minutes cursing their father for being an evil bastard, their mother for being soft enough to go along with him, and then they’d climbed to a high rock to try and see back to the shore. But Lake Ontario was vast, and they’d been a good hour’s ride out across the water, and when they’d looked to the horizon they’d seen nothing but waves. And Herbert, who hated their father more than anything or anyone in the world, had wept in his arms when they’d climbed down again and learned that they had gone around to explore the other side of the island.

“It was like that.” Crawford says. “That feeling of… powerlessness.” He’s sorry he can’t say something else, because he’s sure that this is the last thing Herbert needs to hear, but it’s the truth and Crawford, unlike Dan, has never deluded himself that Herbert is the sort of person that can be protected from unpleasant truths. Not when they were children and certainly not now.

“Were you alone?” Herbert is white, his lips pressed tightly together, and Crawford shakes his head. 

“I don’t think I was supposed to be there at all. I think, because of what we were doing with the resonator, what Edward and I had become…” Crawford remembers the sensation of overpowering Edward and then the brief lingering feeling he’d had afterwards. “I like to think he sacrificed himself to give me a chance to…” Crawford trails off. When he looks at Herbert again his brother is giving him a doubtful, annoyed look. 

“If you genuinely believe that you’re a fool.” Herbert says. Crawford shrugs. “No, I’m serious. If it makes you feel better to think he loved you deep down, then by all means, pretend it’s true. But don’t act like it’s anything other than a way to comfort yourself.” 

Crawford wants to argue, to tell Herbert that everyone has the capacity for both good and evil and that it is an insult to the depth of human experience to suggest someone can’t both love you and hurt you deeply. But Herbert knows, Crawford thinks, lying against the sand again and feeling the smooth stones of a different beach on an island on Lake Ontario under his back. They both know, better than most, the vast and painful complexities of being human.   
  


* * *

  
When Herbert and Crawford make their way back into the cottage Dan is waiting with a boardgame he claims to have found in the closet but which Herbert has his suspicions was brought along on this trip intentionally. The three of them play nonetheless, because it will make Dan and Crawford happy, but Herbert wins spectacularly, because he ought to get something out of it, too. The others accuse him of cheating and they dissolve into playful bickering, and when Herbert quiets Dan with a kiss Crawford teases them.

It’s so mundane, the little bits of life he shares with these people, but Herbert loves the way Dan beams and the way Crawford laughs and it is worth the hard road it took to get here. Herbert thinks, and he hopes Crawford agrees although he will never ask him, that perhaps family as a concept isn’t so bad, if it can be like this. And he will discover, someday, how to ensure that death cannot stop him, but in the mean time life goes on. 


End file.
